A Cake For A Very Special Birthday Princess!

My niece turned four in August! They grow up so quickly! For this special birthday, I decided to bake and decorate her birthday cake and make it an 'aunty and niece' bonding moment. Oh, we had so much fun working on the cake. Actually she also enjoyed taking pictures after she got bored working on the batter; some of the pics highlighted below were taken by her. My multi-talented niece!

Let's get started on the cake!

1. Bake your cakes and let cool. My sister-in-law and I baked the cake the night before therefore it had ample time to cool. Some bakers refrigerate/freeze their cakes to firm up the cake before torting or carving. Some leave their cake at room temperature; covered on the counter. For this cake, three 6 inch round cakes were used for the bottom layers. The top cake is a 6 inch Wilton sports ball cake pan (the Wilton sports ball cake pan set comes with two halves but only one half is needed for this cake.) In the first pic, I have stacked the cakes beforehand to get an idea of what it would look like. 
2. Tort and level the cakes. Check out this video for assistance. The video also shows you how to fill the cakes.
3. Wrap an 8 inch circular cake board with foil. Place some icing in the middle of the cake board. The icing acts as glue to keep the cakes on the board. 
4. Place the bottom (first) layer on the iced board. Fill the first layer with the buttercream icing or a filling of your choice (see the video referred to in point #2). Continue this process until the last layer is in place. The second pic shows four 6 inch cakes (3 round cakes and 1 part of the sports cake pan) that were torted, leveled and filled with buttercream frosting. The Wilton doll cake mold can be used in place of the multiple cakes. 
5. Now it is time to frost the whole cake. Place icing on the top of the cake and using an spatula spread it on the cake; use as much icing as you need. Try to make it as smooth as you can. This video is a good resource to learn how to get a smooth finished look. It doesn't have to be perfect though since this cake will be covered with fondant.
6. Roll out your fondant. I had to roll mine out several times to make sure that I had the right size. If you don't have a ruler or a rolling mat with measurements, you may have to use the trial basis until you get the right size. Soon enough, you'll be able to eyeball it; I am still working on that!
7. After you've placed the fondant on the cake, it is now time to make the dress pleats. You can go wild at this point to give the dress the design that you want. 
8. Roll a small piece of fondant in the color of your choice (preferably the same color as the dress) and roll it around the doll pick. Go ahead and design the top. It is time to put the Wilton doll pick into your cake. Make sure that you choose the part of the cake that you would like to be the front of the cake and position the doll accordingly.
9. At this point I used the tools from my gum paste tool set to add details to the dress. I particularly used the stitching/quilting tool to add stitches to the skirt of the dress and to the top of the dress as well.
10. Additionally, I used a star tip and buttercream icing to make a drape-like pattern to the front of the dress. I also used it to add dots (star-shaped) of icing around the dress to add to the details. I used a small star tip to add details to the top of the dress as well. 
11. Finally, I added fondant earrings and a fondant necklace to finish the look.

Please share any other designs that you may have for a princess cake. And please don't forget to leave your comments below.